Sting spoke to Rolling Stone in July about his creative inspiration for the song:

“Mortality does sort of rear its head, particularly at my age – I’m 64,” he said. “It’s really a comment on how shocked we all are when one of our cultural icons dies: Prince, David [Bowie], Glenn Frey, Lemmy. They are our gods, in a way. So when they die, we have to question our own immortality. Even I, as a rock star, have to question my own. And the sort of bittersweet realization that hubris doesn’t mean anything in the end.”